Category: 2. World

Tracking the ship attacked in the Red Sea on Sundaypublished at 14:42 British Summer Time 7 July

14:42 BST 7 July

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, MarineTraffic

A Liberian-flagged bulk carrier, Magic Seas, came under attack on Sunday in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen. In the last hour the Houthi rebel group has claimed responsibility.

The attack involved small arms fire, self-propelled grenades and missiles – tactics previously used by Houthis against commercial shipping passing along the Yemeni coastline.

Vanguard Tech, a maritime risk company, said fire and flooding caused the crew to abandon ship. All 22 people onboard are now safe, according to the EU Naval Force, which was involved in the rescue.

The last recorded position of Magic Seas – according to vessel tracking site MarineTraffic- was sent at 17:00 local time (15:00 BST) on Sunday, and showed it west of the Yemeni port of Hudaydah.

Magic Seas had started its journey from Zhuhai in China on 11 June, and its tracking data showed its recorded destination as the Suez Canal, with no onwards details.

Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, the Houthis have regularly launched missiles at Israel and attacked ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The Magic Seas is owned by Allseas Marine. A second bulk carrier affiliated with this company is currently docked at Ashdod in Israel, according to MarineTraffic data. Vanguard Tech has identified two further ships linked to Allseas Marine that visited Israeli ports in April and June last year.

“These factors put the Magic Seas at an extreme risk of being targeted,” Vanguard said.

BBC Verify has contacted Allseas Marine for comment.

Indirect talks between Israel and Hamas over a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza continued for a second day on Monday, hours before a meeting in Washington between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump.

Avi Dichter, an Israeli minister and member of Netanyahu’s security cabinet, said he expected Trump’s meeting with the Israeli prime minister would go beyond Gaza to include the possibility of normalising ties with Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia – an ambitious project that is central to the US president’s policy in the Middle East.

“I think it will first of all be focused on a term we have often used but now has real meaning; a new Middle East,” Dichter told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan on Monday.

Trump has increased pressure for a deal in Gaza in recent weeks and raised the possibility that a ceasefire could be declared in a matter of hours or days.

Before departing for Washington on Sunday evening, Netanyahu said he was confident a deal could be achieved and that Israeli negotiators had been given clear instructions to achieve a ceasefire – but only with conditions that Israel has already agreed.

Sources in the prime minister’s entourage described the talks in Doha as positive, according to Israel’s military radio station and an Israeli official quoted by Reuters. Palestinian officials were more downbeat and said initial meetings on Sunday had ended inconclusively.

The current proposal envisages a phased release of about 28 hostages held by Hamas during an initial 60-day ceasefire, as well as the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, Israeli troop withdrawals from parts of Gaza, a surge of humanitarian aid and discussions on a definitive end to the 21-month conflict.

In March, a previous ceasefire collapsed when Israel reneged on a promise to engage in negotiations that would have led to a second scheduled phase of the existing truce and possibly a permanent cessation of hostilities.

Hamas officials have now demanded strong guarantees that Israel will not launch a new offensive after the 60 days is over.

The militant Islamist organisation also wants the UN and other international organisations to control deliveries of humanitarian aid in Gaza, and bar the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a secretive US and Israel-backed private organisation that started distributing aid in Gaza in May and has been mired in controversy.

A further point of dispute is Hamas’s demand for Israel’s military to pull back much further than proposed in negotiations. The Israeli military now holds about two-thirds of Gaza, including key strategic corridors as well as a swath of the southern part of the territory that has been razed flat and which Israel is reluctant to give up.

“Hamas are eager for a ceasefire, there is no doubt at all … but they have their red lines too. Here in Israel, we have had an experiment with the idea that more and more pressure on Hamas means they will [eventually] give up. Well, how much more pressure can you imagine?,” said Michael Milstein, a Hamas expert and the head of the Palestinian studies forum at Tel Aviv University.

But Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, is under immense pressure, having suffered significant casualties in the conflict and the loss of much of its authority in the devastated territory. The organisation has also been undermined by the recent military success of Israel against Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militia and political movement that was a key ally, and against Iran, a major supporter overseas, in a short war in June that was brought to an end when the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities and then imposed a ceasefire.

“Hamas know they badly need a pause to regroup and take a breath … but they want to survive in the long run. That’s the only real goal … so they are not going to give up everything,” said one source close to Hamas familiar with the current negotiations.

This is why Hamas is refusing two key demands of Israel that are not included in the draft ceasefire proposal, giving up its weapons and sending its Gaza-based leadership into exile, the source said.

Hamas’s losses are contested. Israel has said it has killed more than 20,000 militants in Gaza, but offered no evidence to support the claim. There is little doubt that most of the senior leaders of the group in the territory at the beginning of the war are now dead.

Gaza’s ministry of health has counted more than 57,000 killed by the Israeli offensive there, mostly civilians. The UN and western governments consider the tally to be reliable.

The offensive has plunged Gaza into an acute humanitarian crisis, with much of the 2.3 million population threatened by famine, and reduced much of the territory to rubble.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 12 people on Monday, including six in a clinic housing displaced Palestinians. “We were surprised by missiles and explosions inside the building,” Salman Qudum, a witness, told AFP.

In the south of the territory, Mahmoud Bassal, a civil defence spokesperson, said two people were killed and 20 others injured by Israeli forces’ gunfire near a distribution site run by the GHF.

Hundreds have been killed in recent weeks seeking food from the organisation’s distribution points, from UN convoys and from looted aid trucks.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the reports of casualties. In a separate statement, it said it had struck “dozens of terrorists, weapons depots, observation posts, military buildings and other terror infrastructures” over the past 24 hours.

The war was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October 2023 in which militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 250. Of the hostages, 50 remain in Gaza, of whom less than half are thought to be alive.

Some of Netanyahu’s hardline coalition partners oppose any end to the fighting. But, with Israelis having become increasingly weary of the war and the military supporting a ceasefire so that remaining hostages can be returned, his government is expected to back a ceasefire.

Soldiers died from gas exposure during a mission to recover a Turkish soldier missing in the cave since 2022.

Twelve Turkish soldiers have died after inhaling methane gas during a mission in northern Iraq, the Turkish Ministry of National Defence says.

“Four other of our heroic comrades in arms, affected by methane gas, have died … bringing the total number of victims to 12,” the ministry said in a post on X on Monday.

According to it, the incident took place on Sunday as troops searched for the remains of a soldier killed by fighters belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 2022.

PKK has been labelled a terrorist group by Turkiye, the European Union and the United States. It fought for Kurdish autonomy for years, a fight that has been declared over now.

Nineteen soldiers were exposed to the gas inside a site once used by armed fighters as a hospital.

The condition of the remaining seven soldiers was not clear immediately. “I wish a speedy recovery for our heroes affected by methane
gas,” Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X.

The soldiers were conducting a sweep operation inside a cave at an altitude of 852 metres (2,795 feet) in the Metina region, part of Turkiye’s ongoing Operation Claw-Lock targeting the PKK positions in northern Iraq.

Though the gas is not considered toxic, methane can become deadly in confined spaces due to suffocation risks. The ministry has not clarified how the gas accumulated inside the cave.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his “great sorrow” over the incident and extended condolences to the families of the fallen.

Defence Minister Yasar Guler travelled to the area to oversee inspections and attend ceremonies for the deceased.

News of the deaths emerged as a delegation from the pro-Kurdish DEM party was visiting jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan as part of the ongoing negotiations with the Turkish government.

The decades-long conflict between Ankara and the PKK has killed more than 40,000 people since 1984.

Leaders of the BRICS bloc have sharply rebuked the United States and Israeli bombardments of Iran in June, calling them a “blatant breach of international law” while voicing strong support for the creation of a Palestinian state.

But their joint declaration on Sunday, issued at a summit in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, was largely silent about another major war that is now in its fourth year and in which a founding BRICS member – Russia – is the aggressor: the conflict in Ukraine. Instead, it criticised Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil.

The carefully worded declaration, released amid escalating trade tensions with the US, condemned aggressive economic policies without directly naming US President Donald Trump. Almost all 10 members of BRICS, a bloc of emerging world economies, are currently engaged in sensitive trade talks with the US and are trying to assert their positions without provoking further tensions.

However, the BRICS statement did take aim at “unilateral tariff and non-tariff barriers” that “skew global trade and flout WTO [World Trade Organization] regulations”, a clear, though indirect critique of Trump’s protectionist agenda, before a deadline on Wednesday for new US tariffs to potentially kick in.

Trump responded to the BRICS declaration within hours, warning on his social media platform, Truth Social, that countries siding with what he termed “anti-American policies” would face added tariffs.

“Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy,” he wrote.

Which countries are part of BRICS, and who attended the summit?

The first BRICS summit was held in 2009 with the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China coming together. South Africa joined in 2010, and the bloc has since become a major voice for the Global South.

Last year, Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates joined the group, expanding its influence further and turning the bloc into a 10-nation entity.

There is growing interest from emerging economies to join the bloc with more than 30 nations queueing up for membership. Argentina was expected to join but withdrew its application after ultra-conservative President Javier Milei, an ally of Trump, took office in December 2023.

The Rio summit was led by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Most other member countries were represented by their leaders with three exceptions: Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian were absent.

Xi had attended all previous BRICS summits since taking office in 2013 while Putin has avoided most international trips since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him over his role in the war on Ukraine in March 2023. Brazil is a member of the ICC and would have been required under the Rome Statute, which established the court, to arrest Putin if he visited.

Russia and Iran were represented by their foreign ministers and China by Premier Li Qiang.

This was the first summit attended by Indonesia after its induction into the bloc this year.

The BRICS statement also welcomed Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Nigeria, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Uganda and Uzbekistan as new BRICS partner countries – a status that places them on a perch below full membership and allows the bloc to increase cooperation with them.

Condemnation of US-Israel strikes on Iran

In their declaration, member states described the recent Israeli and American attacks on Iran as a “violation of international law”, expressing “grave concern” about the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East.

The conflict began on June 13 when Israel launched air strikes on Iranian military, nuclear and civilian sites, killing at least 935 people, including top military and scientific leaders. Iran’s Ministry of Health reported 5,332 people were injured.

Tehran retaliated with missile and drone strikes on Israel, killing at least 29 people and injuring hundreds more, according to figures from Israeli authorities.

A US-brokered ceasefire came into effect on June 24 although the US had supported Israeli strikes just days earlier by dropping bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities on June 21.

The BRICS statement underscored the importance of upholding “nuclear safeguards, safety, and security. … including in armed conflicts, to protect people and the environment from harm”.

Gaza war and Palestinian statehood

As Israel’s 21-month-long war on Gaza continues, BRICS denounced the use of starvation as a weapon of war and rejected the politicisation or militarisation of humanitarian aid.

The bloc threw its support behind UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, which has been banned by Israel.

In late May during its blockade on aid for Gaza, Israel allowed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private US organisation, to provide food to the people in the enclave. The move has been widely criticised by global rights bodies, especially since hundreds of Palestinians seeking aid have been shot and killed while approaching the GHF’s aid distribution sites.

BRICS also reaffirmed its position, one that is widely held globally, that Gaza and the occupied West Bank are both integral parts of a future Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

On October 7, 2023, nearly 1,200 people were killed in Israel in Hamas attacks, during which Palestinian fighters also took more than 240 people captive. Since then, Israel has waged a war on Gaza, killing more than 57,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, and destroying more than 70 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure. In that same period, Israel has also killed more than 1,000 people in the West Bank.

Opposition to unilateral sanctions

The BRICS declaration strongly condemned the imposition of “unilateral coercive measures”, such as economic sanctions, arguing that they violate international law and harm human rights.

BRICS members Iran and Russia have been targets of longstanding US sanctions.

After the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the attack on the US embassy in Tehran, Washington imposed a wide range of sanctions. Those were ramped up in the 2010s as the US under then-President Barack Obama tried to pressure Iran to negotiate a nuclear deal in exchange for sanctions relief. But two years after that deal came into effect, Trump, who succeeded Obama as president, pulled out of the agreement and slapped tough sanctions back on Iran. Since then, the US has imposed more sanctions on Iran, including a set of measures last week.

Russia, formerly the US’s Cold War rival, has also faced repeated waves of sanctions, particularly after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Trump tariffs called a ‘threat’

With the global economy in turmoil over Trump’s trade policies, BRICS voiced concern over his tariffs regime.

Trump has set Wednesday as a deadline to finalise new trade agreements, after which countries failing to strike deals with Washington will face increased tariffs.

The BRICS bloc, a major force in the global economy, is projected to outpace global average gross domestic product growth in 2025.

According to April data from the International Monetary Fund, the economies of BRICS countries will collectively grow at 3.4 percent compared with a 2.8 percent global average.

The world’s top 10 economies by size include the wealthy Group of Seven nations – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and US – and three BRICS nations – Brazil, China and India.

The group warned that protectionist trade policies risk reducing global trade, disrupting supply chains and heightening economic uncertainty, undermining the world’s development goals.

Pahalgam attack condemned

Two months after the Pahalgam attack in India-administered Kashmir, in which gunmen killed 26 civilians, BRICS condemned the incident “in the strongest terms”.

But even with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi present, the statement did not mention Pakistan, which New Delhi has accused of supporting the attackers in April.

The two countries fought a four-day war in May after Indian strikes inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Pakistan has denied involvement in the Pahalgam attack and called for a “credible, transparent, independent” investigation.

The BRICS statement urged “zero tolerance” for “terrorism” and rejected any “double standards” in counterterrorism efforts.

Silence on Ukraine war

The lengthy statement made no direct mention of Russia’s war in Ukraine except to call for a “sustainable peace settlement”.

However, it did condemn Ukrainian strikes on Russian infrastructure in May and June, citing civilian casualties and expressing its “strongest” opposition to such actions.

Texas was hit by catastrophic flash floods on Friday after powerful thunderstorms unleashed torrential rainfall across the region. Kerr County, in the south-central Hill Country, received more than 300mm of rain in just a few hours.

As of Sunday evening, at least 68 people had been confirmed dead, and 28 girls were missing after flood waters tore through a summer camp.

In just two hours, the Guadalupe River surged by more than 6 metres (20ft), sweeping away vehicles and inundating homes.

The storms were supercharged by moisture from the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry, which had struck Mexico earlier in the week and drawn saturated air from the Gulf, and instability in the atmosphere facilitated by a low-level jet stream. Climate change is expected to increase the likelihood of these events, as warmer air can hold more moisture.

The Hill Country’s rugged topography, marked by steep hills, canyons, and valleys, amplifies the risk and impact of flash flooding, and it is often referred to as “Flash Flood Alley”. On top of that, the area’s limestone and granite terrain exacerbates runoff, because water struggles to soak into the ground.

Meanwhile, what began as a tropical depression near the north-west of the Philippines rapidly intensified into Typhoon Danas over the weekend and struck Taiwan on Sunday morning with winds reaching 85mph and torrential rain. Almost 3,000 people had to evacuate their homes.

Originally expected to head towards Thailand, the storm altered its course over the weekend, veering northwards across the Taiwan strait. On Sunday, more than 150mm of rainfall was recorded in parts of Taiwan, causing landslides and flash flooding. Further heavy rainfall hit the region on Monday morning.

Typhoon Danas is projected to continue its path north-east across the South China Sea, hitting south-east China by midweek. Yellow weather warnings have been issued in Fujian and southern Zhejiang provinces, where wind speeds may reach up to 90mph and more than 130mm of rainfall is expected by Wednesday. However, the exact trajectory of the storm remains uncertain and may shift in the coming days.

Although Thailand was spared a direct hit, the typhoon has amplified the region’s monsoon, intensifying the south-westerly winds and drawing in more saturated air from the surrounding ocean. Consequently, northern Thailand has seen an increased humidity and widespread heavy rainfall, which is expected to reach over 90mm in 24 hours in places, bringing the risk of flash flooding and landslides to 33 provinces, particularly near the Mekong River.

More than a month after their initial social media bluster, Elon Musk has announced the formation of a new US political party in response to US President Donald Trump signing his sweeping tax and spending bill into law.

Trump criticised the new party announcement, calling it “ridiculous”, while Musk, once a close ally of the president, said the party would aim to unseat the Republican lawmakers in Congress who backed the bill, in next year’s midterm elections.

Investors in Musk’s Tesla were rattled by concerns that the billionaire’s deepening involvement in politics would shift his focus away from the automaker at a tumultuous time.

Here’s how the spat between the world’s most powerful man and its richest has unfolded:

June 3: Musk attacks Trump’s top legislative priority — a sweeping tax cut and spending bill.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it,” he wrote on his X platform.

June 5, around noon ET: Trump says he anticipates Musk criticising him personally.

“Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “He said the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that’ll be next. But I’m, I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”

June 5, 12.10 pm ET: Musk posts on X: “Slim Beautiful Bill for the win.”

June 5, 12.25 pm ET: Musk responds to a clip of Trump from the Oval Office saying Musk knew the inner workings of the bill.

“False. This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!” Musk wrote on X.

June 5, 1.57 pm ET: Musk launches a poll on X with the question: “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80 per cent in the middle?”

June 5, 2.37 pm ET: Trump hits back on his social media platform, Truth Social.

“Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went Crazy!”
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elons Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”

June 5, 4.06 pm ET: Trump defends the spending bill and takes a swipe at Musk: “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

June 5, 4.09 pm ET: Musk posts on X in response to Trump’s comments about government contracts: “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.”

June 5, 4.11 pm ET: Musk writes “yes” on X in response to another user posting: “President vs Elon. Who wins? My money’s on Elon. Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him.”

June 5, 4.26 pm ET: Musk writes: “The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year.”

June 5, 11:29 pm ET: Trump tells Politico, “Oh it’s okay,” and, “It’s going very well, never done better,” when asked about his public breakup with Musk, the news outlet reported.

White House aides have scheduled a call on Friday with Musk to broker peace, Politico reported.

June 6, 08:12 am ET (5:12 pm PKT): Trump is not interested in talking to Musk, a White House source with knowledge of the matter says on Friday.

June 6, 6:23 pm ET: When asked whether he would consider cutting government contracts held by Musk, Trump says he will look at everything.

June 7, 12:37 pm ET Trump, in a telephone interview with NBC News, says his relationship with Musk is over and warned there would be “serious consequences” if Musk funds US Democrats.

“No,” Trump tells NBC when asked if he had any desire to repair his relationship with Musk. “I have no intention of speaking to him,” Trump says.

June 9, 3:31 pm ET Trump says he has no plans to discontinue Starlink at the White House but might move his Tesla off-site.

June 11, 03:05 am ET Musk says he regrets some of the posts he made last week about Trump, in a post on X.

June 30, 3:08 pm ET Musk starts a series of posts on X criticising the new bill.

“It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record five trillion dollars that we live in a one-party country the Porky Pig Party!!”

June 30, 4:02 pm ET Musk writes: “Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!”
“And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”

July 1, 12:44 am ET Trump posts on social media platform Truth Social, suggesting DOGE look into subsidies received by Musk’s companies to save money.

“Elon Musk knew, long before he so strongly Endorsed me for President, that I was strongly against the EV Mandate. It is ridiculous, and was always a major part of my campaign. Electric cars are fine, but not everyone should be forced to own one. Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a Fortune. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? Big Money To Be Saved!!!”

July 1, 12:57 am ET Musk responds to Trump’s comments on X: “I am literally saying Cut It All. Now.”

July 4, 8:57 am ET Musk creates a poll on X, asking people if they would want him to create the America Party.

“Independence Day is the perfect time to ask if you want independence from the two-party (some would say uniparty) system!” The vote ends with 65.4% in favour of creating the party with 34.6pc against.

July 5, 3:46 pm ET Musk announces the formation of the America Party on X.

“By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it! When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy.”

“Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”

July 6, 6:20 pm ET Trump posts on Truth Social about Musk’s formation of a third political party.

“I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a Train Wreck over the past five weeks. He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States — The System seems not designed for them.”